Boycott Workfare is a UK-wide campaign to end forced unpaid work for people who receive welfare. Workfare profits the rich by providing free labour, whilst threatening the poor by taking away welfare rights if people refuse to work without a living wage. We are a grassroots campaign, formed in 2010 by people with experience of workfare and those concerned about its impact. We expose and take action against companies and organisations profiting from workfare; encourage organisations to pledge to boycott it; and actively inform people of their rights.

These groups provide a space for claimants to support each other with benefit problems they are facing and take action together to try to resolve that issue, as well as organising actions against welfare cuts in general.

The last workfare week of action saw thousands of ‘how to avoid workfare’ leaflets being handed out at job centres across the UK. Through informing people of their rights and forming support groups so that we can make sure these rights are upheld and extended, we can effectively challenge the government’s various workfare schemes and their welfare cuts.

We are currently organising a UK gathering for welfare action groups and individuals looking to start a group to come together and share ideas and experiences. Save the date 18th January 2014. Get in touch with us if you’d like to be involved in making this happen info@boycottworkfare.org and if you or your group would be interested in running a skillshare on the day. Keep your eyes peeled on this blog for further information.

Why not get involved in one of the groups listed below? Or drop us an email if you would like to set up a group in your area and would like to discuss how we can support you, advertise your group and link you up with others in your area.

With football clubs under fire for not paying staff the minimum wage, Boycott Workfare can reveal some of them are using workfare to avoid paying staff at all. Portsmouth FC, which went into administration following relegation, bankruptcy and debts of millions, is now owned by the fans in the shape of the Portsmouth Supporters Trust. Ironically one of its sponsors is ‘Jobsite.co.uk‘. The club is open about its use of workfare through the Mandatory Work Activity (MWA) scheme, telling a local paper:

“So far there have been 35 people working here over the past six weeks .They’re contracted to do 6.5 hours a day and since they’ve been here, for the past six weeks they’ve done more than 3,000 hours of painting and maintenance and general cleaning.It’s incredible.

Some of the painting we would do every year, but we’re painting things that haven’t seen a lick of paint in maybe 25 years”

The general up keep and maintenance of the club is done by people forced to work for free under threat of losing their barely subsistence benefits for a minimum of 3 months, and up to 3 years. Turns out the self-proclaimed ‘community club’ are more than happy to exploit the local unemployed community by using them to do jobs – without wages. By doing workfare at Portsmouth FC, the unemployed are effectively being used to pay off the club’s debts.

But Pompey is not the only club involved. On the Boycott Workfare facebook there has now been reports about more MWA at Leciester City Football Club and mandatory Work Programme placements at Bristol Rovers Football Club and Bristol City Football Club. On top of this tender documents that companies used when bidding for their MWA contracts back in 2011 name local clubs Handsworth FC, Hurlford United FC and Lanark Juniors FC as possible workfare users.

Someone on facebook described the conditions at Leciester City Football Club where her friend has been forced to work:

“Apparently at leicester fc grounds,there is at least one person with special needs on a MWP, and i am told they are treated badly, only being given a 30 Min lunch break. The have also reported being spoken to derisorily by the supervisor at LCFC stadium, and being forced to wipe down chairs for six hours one day-clearly punitive & not about gaining experience or improving skills.”

Football is not unique in the sporting world and people using our Name & Shame form have also been sent to Keighley Cougars Rugby League Club and the Leicester Riders Basketball Club to do 4 week long MWA placements.

These clubs and sports are enjoyed by many, but they should not be using forced free labour where people face losing everything if they do not do as the clubs demand – and Pompey, not having got round to painting your stadium for 25 years is not an excuse!

If you suspect that your local sports club are using workfare report them on our Name and Shame form. Why not contact them using their twitter and facebook pages to express your concern at their involvement in workfare schemes which increase poverty and undermine paid jobs.

Jamie Wilson and Cait Reilly began their legal challenge against the Department for Work and Pensions’ workfare schemes at the High Court in 2012. Jamie, a mechanic, was sanctioned for six months because he refused to work unpaid cleaning furniture for 6 months for 30 hours a week. Cait was forced to end her time volunteering at a local museum and stack shelves in Poundland for two weeks.

At 10:30 this Monday morning the Supreme Court will begin hearing the DWP’s appeal and Cait and Jamie’s cross-appeal in Cait Reilly and Jamie Wilson v Secretary of State . The legal atmosphere will be odd: the DWP’s appeal is completely academic because it has enacted law which says that it won in the first place anyway.

After that judgement, no-one could be be forced to participate in workfare – except MWA, which wasn’t covered by the regulations – until new regulations were drawn up. (These were made the same day the Court of Appeal handed down judgement.) It looked like £130 million of unlawfully applied sanctions would have to be repaid.

The Supreme Court hearing is important, though. Public Interest Lawyers, representing Jamie and Cait, will argue that the government’s approach to workfare continues to be unlawful. If the Supreme Court agrees, the new Regulations, like the old ones, may be quashed and the government might be forced to take a different approach, publishing details of all workfare schemes.

During the cross-appeal, PIL will argue that the government has a responsibility clearly and publicly to tell claimants what is involved in each different workfare scheme and what the criteria are for deciding who is eligible. Without this information, it is extremely difficult to to make a decision about whether or not to take part in workfare, or to know whether the decision is even one you can make. At the moment very little publicly available information exists that you can use to challenge your eligibility for workfare schemes – as anyone who’s ever been forced onto one knows. The bits of information available have been collected over a long time, by many people making Freedom of Information requests. (At the Appeals Court, the DWP wasn’t even able to show that its own internal guidance was detailed enough or up-to-date.) At the moment it is unclear how to appeal against sanctions or against referrals to workfare schemes; it is almost impossible to know whether or not the things you’re forced to do while on workfare are the kind of things you can ‘legitimately’ be forced to do.

These arguments for the publication of information about workfare were part of the first appeal, but the Court paid them little attention. PIL will draw upon a mass of examples to show that people have a public law right to know at least enough about the law that effects them to be able to challenge its application (for example, see here, paragraphs 34-36).

This right is underlined by judgements in the Court of Human Rights. These are the concern of the second part of Cait and Jamie’s cross-appeal, since the Court of Appeal didn’t find that workfare breaches article four of the European Convention on Human Rights (‘no one shall be required to perform forced or compulsory labour’). It sidestepped the question, also having no problem with unpaid work in general. PIL will argue that workfare does breach article four rights. None of the information about workfare is accessible, so none of its requirements or its consequences are foreseeable and nothing about it is set out with precision. It therefore cannot be work that is ‘part of normal civic obligations’ (which is exempt from article four). Also, since the 2011 and 2013 Regulations are outside the powers of the government (PIL will argue), workfare is also not a part of domestic law, further strengthening the argument that it is a breach of article four rights.Read the rest of this entry »

With your help, Boycott Workfare would like to highlight the devastating impact that benefit sanctions are having on people’s lives. Collecting together your experiences of benefit sanctions we will be putting together a sanctions zine. Email us your words, however many or few you want to use. Things you may want to include may be:

- the length of the sanction

- the ‘reason’ the Job Centre gave for imposing the sanction and how they told you this ‘reason’

- how it affected your life, including its impact on your physical and mental health, your family and friendships

- how you coped during this time

- and how you are doing now e.g. still claiming JSA, stopped signing on, signing on to a different benefit, stress/worry about further sanctions etc.

- perhaps you have not been sanctioned, but have been bullied and threatened with sanctions

Email us at info@boycottworkfare.org

Feel free also to submit drawings and get in touch if you have any other ideas or suggestions. We also welcome submissions from those who are indirectly affected by benefit sanctions, such as welfare activists, welfare advisors and those involved in the Civil Service Rank and File Network.

G4S are holding their Annual General Meeting next week where they will boast about the profit they’ve made from exploiting unemployed people. A Prime Provider of the government’s failing Work Programme, G4S force people onto workfare and sanction benefits for millions of pounds of government money.

G4S are in the business of force. As well as making claimants lives miserable through coercion and bullying, G4S also profit from detention, imprisonment, and the exercise of force on behalf of oppressive regimes. Join the Stop G4S demo next Thursday in London and link up with others to stop them ‘securing your world’.

We do not have Work for Your Benefit or Workfare schemes in this country. Workfare is an American term used to describe employment programmes which force all jobseekers to work at a certain point of their claim in order to continue to receive benefit

This week, Boycott Workfare has been contacted by a concerned member of staff working at high street retailer Shoe Zone. Their first hand experience, which they bravely wanted to share with us all, provides yet more evidence that workfare is replacing paid jobs. As with Argos and Superdrug, Shoezone are using ‘work experience’ from the job centre to cover the busy Christmas period instead of employing temporary staff or giving current staff the option of over-time. Here is their story:

“I work in Shoe Zone in the south east. This week our manager has held three ‘interviews’ with people sent from the job centre. They are to help us for up to 30 hours a week for 8 weeks over the Christmas period. One of them stated he would only be getting his bus fare paid by the job centre. This is to be called ‘work experience’. If there is work to do over Christmas surely we could hire staff for 8 weeks in a proper fashion? I am sickened that my manager imagines they are doing these people a favour of some sort to ‘let them experience work’. I get the feeling that head office will be very pleased with themselves too to keep a store running smoothly over Christmas without actually using any extra resources, when these work experience placements can pick up the slack.

The three people start today on this ‘work experience’ and I am terrified by the idea that head office think they don’t need to pay their staff and can run a store with people from the job centre. i myself am on part-time minimum wage and if they can have workers for free now what is to stop them making my position redundant and using job centre people to run the store at no cost to themselves? If my hours are cut next year, i shall know why.

I do not feel its right these people will be expected to do the same work as our usual staff. Even worse, i will be expected to keep an eye on them to make sure no mistakes are made when pulling stock and writing labels etc- extra work we could do without at Christmas time. They will not be authorised to use the tills or ordering system but everything else including dealing with customers, they will be expected to do. Its a disgrace. I fear for the safety of my job at the moment and in the future if this ‘work experience’ continues.”

If you would like to contact Shoe Zone about this:
Twitter: @shoezone
Facebook: click here

Also Birmingham are taking action against the use of workfare in high street stores over Christmas on the 8th of December during the week of action.

Hundreds of people paid a visit to workfare providers on and around Oxford Street on 20 Oct! Thanks to all the different groups that took part and the great samba band! Watch this space for a day of action on 8 December…

M&S: Specialising in forcing single parents to work without pay

Several stores shut down as the demo approached. This one seems to confirm the word on the streets: Arcadia hasn’t in fact ended its involvement?

It’s a simple message and we’re going to keep pushing it until workfare is no more.

Today was a sad day for anyone hoping that a change of government might revive a commitment to social justice, and do away with workfare. Instead Liam Byrne announced that Labour would continue to cut welfare on top of the further £10 billion cuts the coalition government plans to make by 2016.

All three main political parties have sent out a clear message: if you are claiming any kind of welfare, whether you are in work, or out of work, not to mention if you are carrying out forced unpaid work for Poundland (whose profits are up following their use of workfare) then too bad.Read the rest of this entry »

Boycott Workfare is calling on anti-workfare groups up and down the country to take action against charities who are profiting from workfare on Saturday 8th September. Thousands of us have taken action against the corporate workfare exploiters, so it’s important that we don’t let charities off the hook.

How can charities claim to make the world a better place when they are directly responsible for driving people into poverty and destitution through sanctions? The disturbing reality is that unemployed disabled people could be forced to work in the Scope, Cancer Research UK or British Heart Foundation charity shops that claim to support them. Salvation Army and Barnardos claim to fight poverty but claimants face the loss of subsistence benefits if they do not take part in workfare in their stores. Meanwhile, the heads of BHF and Barnardos receive £153,000 a year and £166,000 a year respectively.

On 8th September, take to the streets or join the online wave of action to end charity involvement in workfare.

Get involved with an action near you or organise one yourself! Workfare walks of shame, pickets, and occupations are some fun actions you can do on your local high street. Or go online to let these charities know what you think of workfare using twitter and facebook.

Post your actions on the facebook event or in the comments and we’ll add them to the list!